Having developed its roots during the PC era, many of today’s anti-virus technologies are designed to install on PCs and notebooks. These platforms’ limited resources has forced anti-virus technologies to focus on “making a best effort under very restricted computation power.” After all, who’d like to use an anti-virus product that sucks 50% of their system resource?

Today’s cyber attacks are sophisticated, targeted, and persistent; it is no wonder they render anti-virus detection useless. Today’s advanced threats calls for a brand new approach – an approach that leverages modern technologies such as cloud-based virtualization, big data, elastic storage, and dynamic provisioning.
An important question we ask ourselves is:

Can we scale up our detection rate proportionate to our available computation power? For antivirus, the answer is NO. Since antivirus detection rate quickly plateaus as we add resources, it is hard for antivirus to benefit from today’s cloud advancements. Antivirus can still leverage the cloud to scale up their detection “volume” and “speed,” but not when it comes to increasing the detection rate.

Since two years ago, aimed at detecting next generation threats, Armorize set its goal to build a detection platform whose detection rate scales up in proportion to the computation power. This allows us to leverage recent cloud evolutions and increase our detection rate as cloud technologies advance.
Existing security mechanisms such as sandboxing, when combined with the cloud’s computation power, forms an extremely powerful detection platform whose goal is not to conserve resources but to leverage as much resources as possible in order to detect next generation threats.

Proofpoint, Inc. has announced the inclusion of the Armorize Anti-Malvertising solution, SafeImpression, among its offerings. Henceforth the solution will be marketed as the Proofpoint Malvertising Protection service, delivering in-depth insight into the nature and security state of online advertisements and providing Ad Networks, Ad Exchanges, Online Publishers, Yield Optimizers and all other actors in the industry, insightful, actionable intelligence surrounding the security of advertisements in their ecosystems.
Malvertising is the use of online advertising channels to infiltrate malware into the computers of unsuspecting users by embedding malicious code within legitimate advertisements on trusted websites. By simply visiting a site, users can get infected via "drive-by download". There is no visible indication that the trusted site is compromised. As most advertising on trusted sites comes from a variety of ad networks - different visitors will see different ads from different places, not all of which will be malicious - Malvertising is particularly hard to detect.
Malvertising is a growing problem. Research shows that billions of malicious advertisements are being served each year. Malvertising is especially virulent for two reasons. Firstly, leveraging the online ad network gives attackers the ability to target specific groups; attackers can ensure infection across a designated demographic or targeted set of audiences. Secondly, because there are so many players in the supply chain through which a given advertisement passes, attackers can more easily avoid detection.
As more and more business-related sites carry ads, and attackers increasingly leverage the online ads ecosystem to target users, the security implications of malvertising are significant for publishers and Enterprises alike. Proofpoint takes a new approach to addressing the threat of malicious ads in two ways.Please click here for additional information.

About Proofpoint

Proofpoint Inc. (NASDAQ:PFPT) is a leading security-as-a-service provider that focuses on cloud-based solutions for threat protection, compliance, archiving & governance, and secure communications. Organizations around the world depend on Proofpoint's expertise, patented technologies and on-demand delivery system to protect against phishing, malware and spam, safeguard privacy, encrypt sensitive information, and archive and govern messages and critical enterprise information. More information is available at www.proofpoint.com.
Proofpoint acquired Armorize Technologies, Inc in September of 2013, integrating Armorize's leading malware detection technologies into the Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection (TAP) platform which defends organizations against compromise involving Web-based malware delivered via highly targeted methods and typically executed by actors representing Advanced Persistent Threats.

Proofpoint, Inc. to Acquire Armorize Technologies, Inc.

Cloud-based Next-Generation Threat and Malware Detection Technology and World-Class Research Team to Further Augment Proofpoint's Targeted Attack Protection offering

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – August 9, 2013 –
Proofpoint, Inc., (NASDAQ: PFPT), a leading security-as-a-service provider, today announced that it has agreed to acquire Armorize Technologies, Inc., a company that develops and markets leading cloud-based (SaaS) anti-malware products. The acquisition will add real-time dynamic detection technology for next-generation threats and malware as well as a leading malware research team to Proofpoint's already robust capabilities. This will further augment and accelerate development of Proofpoint's Targeted Attack Protection? product. Under the terms of the agreement, Proofpoint will pay approximately $25.0 million in cash. The acquisition has been approved by the Proofpoint Board of Directors and by the requisite Armorize shareholders and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2013.

"This acquisition solidifies Proofpoint’s leading position in cloud-based next-generation threat detection technology and malware research expertise," said Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele. "By adding Armorize's capabilities in Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) detection and remediation and a team of distinguished technologists and researchers, we will continue to provide a unique approach to advanced threat protection to our expanding customer base – as well as strengthen our presence in the APAC region." | View Proofpoint press release | View Armorize blog post...

Armorize & Symantec Partner on New Anti-malvertising Solution

Armorize Technologies, the global leader in web malware detection solutions, has announced it has joined forces with Symantec. The partnership will utilize the advanced malware detection engine from Armorize's successful HackAlert product lines to power Symantec's new cloud-based anti-malvertising solution, Symantec AdVantage.
| View press release...

Armorize Attends the Online Trust Alliance's Online Trust Forum 2011

Armorize received Online Trust Alliance award at OTA Forum 2011. In recognition of outstanding leadership and international support of the OTA, Armorize named new partner of the year.
Come see Armorize speak at this year's OTA Online Trust Forum. We will be speaking at the Anti-malvertising Academy and sitting on the "Securing the Ad Supply Chain" panel.

Proofpoint Malvertising Protection is a new product line targeted specifically at detecting malicious advertising (also known as malvertising). Based on technology advancements and real world experiences with HackAlert™, Proofpoint Malvertising Protection incorporates static analysis, behavioral analysis, and our own reputation database collected over many years of real time scanning with HackAlert™ over hundred thousands of popular domains worldwide | more...

Cloud-based defense against next generation threats

Armorize HackAlert™ is a scalable cloud-based service that analyzes, detects, prevents, and mitigates against malware infections across corporate websites, in online ads, in documents and in emails. HackAlert focuses on special malware, such as 0-day exploits or exploits used in APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) attacks, that are undetectable by typical virus or malware scanners. This may include for example malicious binaries, document exploits (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Flash), Java exploits, browser exploits, BHO (browser helper object) exploits, drive-by downloads, click-to downloads, etc.

Armorize partners with Symantec to provide its powerful anti-malvertising technology to Symantec’s new solution, AdVantage, to help customers protect themselves from the growing threat of malicious a...

HackAlert SafeImpression™, Armorize Technologies' New Anti-Malvertising Solution Built to Aid the Online Ad Industry in Combating the Rising Threat of Malicious Online Advertising, to Be Showcased at...